Page 24 - RusRPTJune18

US pressure and agreed to sell some his shares in Rusal to take his stake to under 50% in the hopes that the US Treasury will remove some of the destructive sanctions placed on his company on April 6.
Russian sanctioned Renova Group of Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg submitted a rescue plan to the government , Kommersant daily reported on May 3 citing unnamed sources. The wide list of proposed measures includes refinancing foreign loans worth €820mn collateralised with a 26.5% stake in sanctioned aluminium major Rusal , and subsidising discounted interest or state guarantees for refinancing RUB300bn ($5bn) worth of domestic debt. In addition, Metkombank, partly owned by Vekselberg, is asking to be allowed to credit companies of Renova Group without complying with central bank's capital and risk requirements. Renova also reportedly proposed to limit the imports of sparkling water and lemonade to support its beverage producers Baykal Holding and Himprom.
Russia's second-largest bank VTB Bank stopped issuing loans to businesses of sanctioned Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska , the head of the bank and Kremlin loyalist Andrei Kostin told CNBC. "Of course, we are not lending any new money to him, we are not having any operations with him," Andrei Kostin told CNBC's Geoff Cutmore on May 23.
Sanctioned Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska 66% stake in energy and metals major En+ needs to be cut to 40% before the US Department of Treasury (USTD) sanctions can be lifted, Bloomberg and Vedomosti daily said on May 30 citing unnamed sources. While initially Deripaska refused to give up control in his assets, he has recently caved in to US pressure and agreed to sell some his shares aluminium major Rusal (48.1% controlled by En+) to take his stake to under 50%, as well as to reshuffle the company's board. Vedomosti's sources confirmed that Deripaska is ready to lift the shareholder agreement between En+ and Rusal to comply with the sanctions.
The US Department of Treasury has extended the deadline to comply with sanctions and cut ties with Russian carmaker GAZ Group until October 23, USDT said on May 22. GAZ was one of the businesses of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska that were hit the hardest by the new round of USDT sanctions on April 6 , along with Basic Element, En+, Russian Machines, Eurosibenergo electric utility, Agroholding Kuban, B-Finance subsidiary, and one of world's largest aluminium producers Rusal. The extension of the deadline is part of the lifeline that USDT threw Deripaska and Rusal, in the end of April.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the implementation of his May decree would require an additional RUB8 trillion ($126bn ), although initially the amount of necessary funds was estimated at 10 trillion ($157bn). "We made calculations... <...> I will show the cards to you: we argued until the day before yesterday, we calculated everything and brought this figure to 8 trillion. We believe that 8 trillion of additional costs will be enough," the head of state said at the plenary session of the State Duma, lower house of parliament. "Initially, when we designed the program that was declared in yesterday's decree, we proceeded from the need to find additional 10 trillion, maybe even a little more," Putin said. Putin signs new 'May Decree’ spelling out Russia’s development goals to 2024 Putin reminded that on May 7 he signed the Decree on national goals and strategic development tasks of the Russian Federation for the period until 2024.
24 RUSSIA Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com